Comparison between organic sensitizers containing stilbene and azo group as bridging unit for dye sensitized solar cells.

Abstract

While azo dyes have been widely used in dye industry, the azo dyes have been seldom applied as sensitizers to dye sensitized solar cells. In this study, new metal-free organic sensitizers, ST and AZ, which are same structures except bridging units, were synthesized and evaluated. ST containing stilbene as bridging unit gave higher energy conversion efficiency than AZ containing azo group as bridging unit. As a result of density functional theory (DFT) calculations, ST displayed more localized frontier molecular orbitals at lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) states than AZ.